Thinking International?
by Bill Dunlap
Here is a 5-point checklist before you launch your Website in
other countries
The Internet has made it easier than ever to market products and
services across the globe. Most companies today are so focused on
their domestic market that they do not pay any attention to the
overseas markets. Nevertheless, the international markets represent
an immense potential. (A North American company can triple its
turnover by properly addressing the world market). Of course, one
must budget sufficiently for marketing to achieve this goal.
Things become more complicated when dealing with other countries
where English is not the official language. Our main point here is
that most everyone accesses the Internet in their own language. If
they live in a non-English country, they are most likely not going
to access the Internet in English. In order to market to them, you
have to determine where they congregate (i.e. other language areas
of the Internet) and market to them there. A Web site needs to be
able to attract visitors from many countries without them having to
wonder whether they will understand the message once they arrive at
your Web site. This idea is equally true for translated Web sites.
No one overseas could possibly find your it (even if translated)
unless you make an effort to make it visible in the language(s)
concerned.
The importance of marketing a Web site cannot be overemphasized.
Recent statistics show that large American corporations are
actually cutting their budget for Internet business, since they did
not achieve the results they expected a year or so after they
launched their Web site. The real reason for lack of online
business goes back to lack of marketing the Web site, not lack of
interest from those online. Even in English-speaking countries,
there has not been enough marketing and promotion of the existing
Websites. It is strongly recommended to budget just as much for
promoting one's Web site as for creating it.
Here are some basic points that need to be understood and
followed to achieve success in international online marketing.
Whether to translate? Which languages?
Don't forget email marketing.
Make sure you have established your logistics in advance.
Promote and advertise your Web site abroad.
Other techniques.
1. Choose which countries (or languages) to target:
As you start using the Web to present your company's products or
services to the international market, your analysis needs to keep
in mind two factors:
- which countries you already sell to
- which countries are sufficiently online to attract clients
To translate or not to translate:
Not all Web sites have to be translated. It depends on who your
market is and what you are selling, and how much English your
target market already understands. For technical products and
services, English is commonly understood, and only a "jumper" page
needs to be translated (with links to your English pages). A
"jumper" page is a summary of your offer, translated, so that the
Web page can be registered with the local indexes of the countries
you are targeting. Typical translation costs are $50-$100 for a
short page (200-300 words).
If you choose not to translate your site, but still want to draw
visitors from Northern Europe (where English is widely understood),
at least promote your Website in these countries, in their own
language(s). They will find their way to your Web site and usually
be able to understand it adequately in English.
At the opposite extreme are products and services that are
marketed to everyone abroad: entertainment, household products,
CDs, etc. Here you need to translate as much as you can afford, to
have as much of your site as accessible as possible. You cannot
just create your Web site in English for the world market and just
assume it will be understood. (The attitude that "visitors will
have to read English or nothing".)
Most Websites, however, fall between these two extremes, where
it is good to translate part of the Web site. Not translating will
always make a portion of your audience click elsewhere, since they
cannot understand English or do not want to read it in English at
that time.
The importance of language can never be overemphasized. Overall,
only 12% of Europe's population speaks English as a first language,
and only 28% speaks English at all. A recent major research study
of almost 38,000 European Internet users (http://www.blueskyinc.com/langues.htm)
found that English is cited as the first language by 52% of all
European users (or, not counting the U. K./Ireland, English is used
by only 32% of users, followed by German at 22% and French at
17%).
An extremely enlightening article about the international aspect
of online business is in Hambricht and Quist's online e-zine,
"I-Word", at http://www.hamquist.com/iword/iword23/istory23.html.
It is one of the best articles on the subject, underlining the need
for American companies to seriously address international markets.
Excerpt:
"One of the best ways for maturing U.S. businesses to maintain
or exceed their historic rates of growth is to expand
internationally by targeting under-served markets overseas. This
has been the case for myriad U.S. companies ranging from Ford and
McDonald's to US West and Walt Disney. The same now holds true for
high-growth U.S. Internet companies. While we would be the last to
suggest that growth opportunities for Internet content and service
providers in the U.S. market are anywhere close to being fully
exploited, many are now investing significant sums of capital to
extend their services into regional markets around the globe.
"Because Internet adoption has -- as a whole -- been slower
worldwide than in the United States, a number of emerging foreign
markets represent unique opportunities for American Internet
companies to be first to market, a key competitive advantage. Some
will be able to establish their brands at even earlier stages of
market development than they were able to do in the United
States.
"The international appetite for such services is unquestionable;
today most major U.S. Internet companies report that fully 22% to
32% of their customers access their U.S.-based English language
services from overseas. Yahoo! reports that users from 110
different countries access its core English language site at www.yahoo.comon a daily basis.
While European sources tell us that their markets are anywhere from
18 months to two years behind the United States in terms of
Internet adoption, this should be viewed as an opportunity for U.S.
Internet companies looking to expand overseas. In fact, we at
Hambrecht & Quist believe it portends the type of explosive
growth in Internet use that swept the United States between 1995
and 1996, especially as telecommunications deregulation begins to
take effect in countries around the world.
"We believe prevailing market research supports our contention.
SIMBA Information, a market research firm in Wilton, Conn.,
predicts that non-North American international markets will produce
30% of all consumer online revenue by 2000, up from just 12% in
1995. Jupiter Communications, a market research firm in New York
City, forecasts that fully 40% of the world's online households
will reside in Europe and Asia/Pacific Rim by 2000, up from 29%
today."
There is no reason for shrinking away from translating your Web
site because of expense. Instead, translate part of it at a time,
and increase the marketing efforts on the language sections where
you feel most confident, and see the results in your sales. You can
translate part of your Web site at a time, so that you start with,
say, two languages, and gradually develop more. Remember: "You can
sell in any language you want, but you only buy in your own
language."
Which languages?
So you're convinced to translate part of your Web pages to
attract visitors. But which languages? Make your decision based on
which countries you already sell in, as well as the logical
conclusions from the figures of how many people are online there.
If you already sell in most of these countries, then let the online
language figures guide you. Certainly you need to provide
translations of as many Web pages as you can afford into Japanese,
German and French, and if you can, at least one page in Swedish,
Finnish and Dutch (because of the high concentration of online
population in these three countries). Next in importance come
Spanish, Dutch and Chinese.
There is a growing interest in bringing Web sites not only into
European languages, but into Asian ones as well -- especially
Japanese. And don't think that these native language Web sites are
aimed at Asia. There are more Chinese online in the U.S. than in
China (one-third of the 2 million Chinese-Americans), and there are
many Japanese, Koreans and Filipinos living in the U.S. and Europe
-- all of whom prefer to access various media in their own native
language.
As of this writing (summer, 1997), there were approximately the
following major language families. These figures reflect the number
of email accounts, not those with Web access (which generally
represent one-third of these figures):
7.5-8 million Japanese online (Japan, U.S./Canada)
3 million German-speaking, French-speaking, Swedish and
Finns (Norwegians and Danes can understand a Swedish presentation
too)
2 million Dutch-speakers and Chinese-speakers (China,
U.S./Canada, Europe, Australia)
1.5 million Spanish-speakers (U.S. Hispanic, Spain, and Latin
America)
1 million Brazilians (Portuguese language).
(The most recent figures are available on Web page http://www.euromktg.com/globstats/.)
Only some of these people can read English, ranging from only about
0.2% (Southern Europe) to 30% (Northern Europe).
2. Don't forget email marketing in other languages
The figures for language groups online (above) represent how
many people can receive email in each language. According to
Netscape, the number of those with Web access is generally
one-third of these figures (with certain exceptions). That means
you can target overseas markets by certain Internet environments
with far more results than using only the Web.
Two acceptable techniques for email marketing are Newsgroups and
online forums, both in the languages of your target group. Although
both areas are just developing for the first time now, both are
accessible for those people abroad who have access only to email.
You can see German Newsgroups at "de.*", French ones at "fr.*" (or
at http://www.fr.net/news-fr/liste.html), Dutch ones at "nl.*",
etc.
Lists of discussion groups can be found at:
French -- http://www.cru.fr/listes/
Other languages at the bottom of http://www.euromktg.com/eng/res/cybmktg/maillistex.html
Of course, you should always have autoresponders ready for
prospective customers who request information, and the text of one
autoresponder can refer to other documents that the prospect can
"pull" in the same way.
Whereas there are starting to be acceptable means of targeting
"opt-in" email databases, for people interested in something quite
specific, there is not yet any equivalent outside the English
language. These direct marketing lists will surely develop, but
they are not prevalent yet. This being said, it is my experience
that Europeans are far more tolerant of direct marketing by email
than Americans are, as long as the presentation is
professional.
3. Make sure you have established your logistics in
advance:
Just because the Internet is global in scope does not mean that
international business is easy. Let me be quite clear of your goal
in overseas marketing: your goal is to motivate potential buyers
for your product or service... to identify themselves. The rest is
traditional international business practice, and is quite
straightforward. If you are not used to selling abroad, you need to
consider issues that have been part of international business for
centuries.
a. Corresponding with prospects in their language (if they
cannot communicate in English).
b. Payments from other countries.
c. Delivery.
d. After-sales service at a distance, in their language.
Correspondence
If you are already doing business overseas, you have already
encountered these issues, and should skip on to the next section.
If not, however, you need to think clearly about each step in the
sales cycle, and how your company will meet each challenge. Do you
have people who speak languages in your company, who can translate
and answer email from interested prospects and established
customers? If not, the best and most economical solution is to use
an automatic translator software, such as Globalink (http://www.globalink.com),
Transparent Language (www.transparent.com), and
Systran Software
Payment Mechanisms
Once the prospect is prepared to place an order, there are
several mechanisms that exist for payment. For all amounts over
$10, it is simply necessary to take a credit card number -- either
by email by using a secure form on your Web site, by fax or by
telephone. If you are not set up to accept credit cards First
Virtual (www.fv.com) can provide this service at a reasonable
charge. Be sure to have your bank references handy if the amount is
over, say, $500, in which case a wire transfer is more
appropriate.
However, many overseas people online do not have credit cards
(Germany and Switzerland in particular). Bank transfers are more in
order in these countries. If you are serious about doing business
in these countries long-term, you might consider opening up a
branch office in Holland. (The cost is less than $100, plus $35
annual renewal). This will give you the right to have a bank
account in Europe and accept electronic transfers. Thomas Cook just
opened an online transfer procedure, "Virtual Trading Desk", and
your customers who order frequently can save money by using their
service. A draft (check) from a regular customer will cost them
only $3.
International delivery is probably the most difficult problem to
tackle for most products, as it needs to be reasonable in both
price and delivery time. International delivery is quite expensive,
with top services such as Federal Express, UPS, DHL, etc. You need
to research this area well for your city and analyze what options
exist. These vary from city to city; there is no general solution.
It all depends on the size, weight and target markets (which
countries) for your product. (Services and software do not present
this difficulty, of course.)
After-sales service usually depends on a geographically local
warehouse, where defective products can be exchanged. If you are
targeting Europe, there are countless such warehouses in Holland
who can stock replacement products in a duty-free zone and respond
to your customers in their local languages.
4. Promote and advertise your Web site abroad:
Now that you have established the beginnings of your non-English
Web pages, how do you attract visitors from other countries to
them? The techniques are similar to the way you would promote your
Web site in English-speaking countries, except that you need to
perform the actions in other languages now:
Index registration
Press releases
Working the local Newsgroups and forums
Strategic links
Banner advertising
These techniques were described in detail in a white paper,
which should be read if you are not familiar with these basics of
Web site promotion.
A solid marketing plan will include elements of all of these
points. Some Webmasters only register their Web site in overseas
indexes, expecting international visitors flock to their site. This
is just as naive as putting one's address in the phone directory
and considering that enough marketing to attract lots of business.
No wonder they are disappointed and then discredit the online
market. In reality, the international market is quite vast and
needs to be budgeted for accordingly.
Registering one's Web site in international indexes, then, goes
without saying: of course it is necessary. Actively marketing the
Web site involves ongoing activity in press releases, strategic
linking and banner advertising.
A word about non-English-language banner advertising, which is
perhaps the most effective way of advertising your Web site, since
the reaction is immediate and emotional for someone online to see
your banner, click on it, and find you. Using this technique abroad
works best when the words on the banner are translated and placed
on overseas Web pages best suited for the target market. Your
click-through rate will be much higher if it is in the local
language than if it is in English. Contrary to what you may hear,
there are many people online in Europe do not read English.
Banner ads have just started now in countries outside the
U.S./Canada. One cannot demand the sophistication of auditing
techniques and banner rotation that is common in the U.S. If you
decide to place banners abroad, consider that a banner seen by
someone overseas might even be considered unusual, since
advertising is not very pervasive outside the U.S./Canada... which
means that more people may be attracted to click on your banner, to
see what it is. (Remember your own reaction in 1994 or 1995 when
you started seeing banners for the first time on the Web. In those
days, some banners resulted in nearly 81%-90% clickthrough rate
since no one understood what they were.)
5. Other techniques of promoting your Web site overseas:
Cyber cafes
Europe is considerably under-equipped in PCs in the home, and
there are hundreds of cybercafes that offer Internet connectivity
in a social setting. What better environment for you to approach
people, as they are being introduced to the Internet in their early
days online? You can put your URL on the mousepads used at
cybercafes (a mousepad is as much an advertising space as a
newspaper ad). Or you can even put your URL on the screensavers at
the cybercafes, so that when the PC is not in use, your URL will be
one of those passing across the screen.
Trade shows
If you have distributors abroad, involve them in promoting your
Web site in their language at their local trade show: handouts,
product literature, or anything that people can take home and use
to find your Web site in their own language.
Magazine ads in overseas publications
Creating community in the languages of your target market. Email
and Web-based discussion groups are now common in English. They are
still quite new abroad. If your product or service lends itself to
this form of discussion, your company can become the online
authority of the subject at hand. Of course, it will require native
speakers to lead the discussion and give it life, but they can be
found.
Examples of Successful Global Companies Using Language on their
Web Site
Hardware: Apple Computer (http://www.apple.com) (13
languages)
Hardware: Cisco (http://www.cisco.com) (15
languages)
Software: Gif Wizard (http://www.gifwizard.com) (4
languages)
Software: Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com) (50
languages)
Software: Adobe (http://www.adobe.com) (9
languages)
Internet: Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com) (4
languages)
Internet: Lycos (http://www.lycos.com) (7
languages)
Internet: Altavista (http://www.altavista.com) (23
languages)
Conclusion:
Marketing your Web site is like marketing anything else. You
need to keep at it. Make sure that you continue monitoring the
international index sites where you list your URL to make sure that
it is still listed. Send more press releases. Add more online
promotion work in the countries that you are targeting. It is an
excellent idea to establish a monthly budget for your international
Web site promotion, as more visitors turn into sales.
The Internet as a marketing medium is still quite young. Even in
the U.S., there was very little marketing done on the Internet
before 1995, and in Europe and Asia the Internet is just starting
to be known as a marketing medium in 1997! (So don't think that you
have missed the boat.) However, with the ever-rapid growth of the
online population, you should not wait: online history has proven
that early entrants "lock up" key positions in their market. The
sooner you take your company marketing international, the sooner
you will move up the learning curve and your online marketing will
begin turning into sales. Start now... before your competition
does. "Internet marketing is not static, it is an ongoing process.
Putting your site on the Web is not the end of your journey, it is
the beginning." Brought to you by: World Wide Information Outlet -
http://certificate.net/wwio/, your source of FREEWare Content
online.
Bill Dunlap, an MIT graduate, has made a life of bringing
high-tech products and services to the international markets. When
the microcomputer industry was in its early stages in the early
1980s, he set up a company to export popular Apple and PC software
to top European markets. This led to a thorough familiarity with
the European PC distribution business, and which brought him to
become AST Research's European Sales Manager.
Further opportunity brought him into Compaq Computer's newly
established Paris office, where he became Compaq's
first sales manager in France. He continued with Compaq the next
year at their European Headquarters, and managed sales in
Scandinavia. Since the mid-1980s, he has developed Euro-Marketing
Associates (EMA) from Paris and San Francisco. EMA's focus was to
locate new, cutting-edge technologies in the U.S. and develop
distribution channels for them in Europe.
Since 1995, Euro-Marketing Associates has been restructured into
a virtual consultancy of top online marketers throughout the world,
to market Web sites in each country and attract more online
traffic.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Bill Dunlap, President
Euro-Marketing Associates
Tel/Fax: +1/415/680-2423 (USA)
Tel/Fax: +44/171/681-1027 (Europe)